Fourth Grade Students Complete FCAT Writing Genre Study

For 20 days our fourth grade writers buckled down to hone their writing skills towards meeting the expectations of Florida's FCAT Writing Test. Students examined student work that received the maximum score of 6.0 in both narrative and expository essays and worked on revising their own writing using lessons learned from these students combined with teacher instruction, small group lessons, peer feedback in author's chair and one-to-one writing conferences. The initial outline of the 20 Days of Instruction was as follows:

Lesson #1 (1/5): Narrative Writer Transition to Landscape of Timed Test/Pre-test with Stamina Assessment
Lesson #2 (1/6): Benchmarking a Narrative 6.0
Lesson #3 (1/7): Understanding the Prompt – Circle, Box, Underline
Lesson #4 (1/8): Narrative Revise to a 6.0 – Structure
Lesson #5 (1/9): Narrative Revise to a 6.0 – Quick & Dirty Revision – Nouns
Lesson #6 (1/12): Narrative Revise to a 6.0 – Quick & Dirty Revision – Verbs
Lesson #7 (1/13): Narrative Revise to a 6.0 – Adding Details
Lesson #8 (1/14): Narrative Editing
Lesson #9 (1/15): Stamina & Pacing/Post-test with Stamina Assessment
Lesson #10 (1/20): Narrative Self-Assessment
Lesson #11 (1/21): Compare & Contrast Narrative & Expository Writing
Lesson #12 (1/22): Expository Writer Transition to Landscape of Timed Test/Pre-test with Stamina Assessment
Lesson #13 (1/23): Benchmarking an Expository 6.0
Lesson #14 (1/26): Expository Draft – Structure
Lesson #15 (1/27): Expository Revise to a 6.0 - Reasons
Lesson #16 (1/28): Expository Revise to a 6.0 - Support: Examples & Elaboration
Lesson #17 (1/29): Expository Revise to a 6.0 – Small Group Re-teaching
Lesson #18 (1/30): Expository Revise to a 6.0 – Strong Closings
Lesson #19 (2/2): Stamina & Pacing/Post-test with Stamina Assessment
Lesson #20 (2/3): Expository Self-Assessment

This was an exciting collaboration with Ms. Collins, my fourth grade Language Arts teacher! For twenty days I was co-teacher in her Writers Workshop. Each day we examined student work together to inform and sometimes revise the next day's minilesson, the order of lessons over a period of a few days, or determine which writers needed small group instruction and one-to-one conferencing.

The result was that in both genres every student scored at least one point higher on the post-assessment. On February 10th, the BIG DAY of testing, students arrived confident and eager to demonstrate what they had learned as writers. All writers stayed with the writing process for at least 35 of the 45 minute testing period demonstrating exceptional writing stamina. 95% of our writers used their optional planning sheets, a step often skipped by novice writers. We have seen great growth in our fourth grade writers in a very short period of time with this focused collaborative instruction!